"Well, you are a brick!" the boy said, "a regular downright un, and no mistake. I wonder how Harry got back; it would be a job for him to wheel hisself all the way back to Westminster."
"Oh, I expect he got some one to help him," Frank said; "and the little girl would be able to help shove him along."
"Yes, she would," Evan replied, "she can shove him by herself along a pavement, and I expect that he and she atween them would be able to get along. Lor! how them things of yours have shrunk, to be sure."
"They have, a bit," Frank said, looking down at his trousers, which were half-way up to his knees; "but it don't matter much, it's getting dark now, and I can take a cab when I get out of the Park. Your clothes don't seem to have suffered so much, they seem plenty large enough for you now."
"Yes," Evan said, with a satisfied air, "and a good job too; mother always will have my clothes so big, cos of my growing. She always seems to think one will grow sudden into a man afore one's things wear out."
Frank and the lad walked together as far as Albert Gate; here they separated, Frank taking a cab home, while Evan, whistling a popular air in a high key, took his way to Westminster. On arriving home he was greeted with enthusiasm by Harry, but Mrs. Holl was not inclined to view his adventure favourably.
"It's all very well to care for dogs, Evan, and I ain't a-saying as Carrie Hill's dog ain't a nice little critter; but when it comes to getting into the freezing water arter it, I don't hold to it no way. Then you might have gone and got drowned—and you would have got drowned too, Harry tells me, if that young gent hadn't been and gone after you; and then this blessed minute I should have been breaking my heart about you, and you down underneath the ice in the bottom of the Serpentine. There ain't no reason in it, my boy. Harry here thinks different about it, and will have it that I ought to be proud of yer; but he ain't a mother, and so can't understand a mother's feelings—and your clothes pretty nigh spoilt too, I'll be bound."
"Well, mother, if they are," Harry said cheerfully, "Evan can buy some more. Here, Evan; here are thirty-eight shillings and ninepence halfpenny, and it's all your own."
"Crikey!" Evan gasped, looking in astonishment at the pile of money in Harry's lap. "Why, where did all that 'ere money come from?"
"That was collected in the crowd, Evan, after you were carried away, and they gave it to me to give to you. I did not quite like your taking money for doing such a thing, but of course as it was given for you I had nothing to say to it."